I first met Pam Hogg in my early 20s at an after-hours lock-in in Soho. I’d already seen her on the quilt of i-D and I believed she was the good particular person, much more so after I came upon she’d made the catsuit that Lady Miss Kier from Deee-Lite was sporting in “Groove is in the Heart.”
The one factor that hit me about Pam in that first assembly was how variety she was. I used to be a pupil and he or she indulged me. So she wasn’t solely variety and funky, she was additionally most likely very affected person with me. I liked her from that second.
Fashion is a really completely different beast now. Commerce dominates creativity, and folks like Pam, who’re one hundred pc the latter, typically get ignored, which is why I feel it’s very important that we rejoice how she managed to create her personal prophetic symbiosis between style and music. It wasn’t merely that she may sing her Scottish lungs out when she was in entrance of her band. She additionally dressed stars like Debbie Harry and Siouxsie Sioux. And the folks she obtained to stroll in her present! I keep in mind dance superstars Michael Clark and Les Child on her catwalk.
Seeing the outpouring of emotion on Instagram after her loss of life, it’s apparent that Pam knew everybody and everybody liked her. She lit up any room she walked into together with her enthusiasm and vitality, and now it’s apparent how a lot vitality it actually took to maintain her life and work. I’ve been trying again at her collections, realising how a lot work went into them and likewise appreciating – actually appreciating – the way it was all her. She actually did the whole lot herself, like a one girl band who simply stored on going it doesn’t matter what.
It took me some time to actually grasp that.
When she requested for assistance on a number of reveals, I used to be glad to help her, give her cash for materials or no matter she wanted. You needed to help somebody whose integrity was so ferocious within the face of an business which by no means actually knew what to do with somebody like her. I feel that’s one more reason she was so liked, together with the truth that these garments she was making on her personal have been typically so fantastic.
That’s why I really feel so honoured by Pam’s final request to me. When she obtained very unwell, she requested to see me. I knew that she’d stored her state of affairs very quiet so I wasn’t positive what to anticipate. It was unhappy to see her so frail when she had at all times been a lot bigger than life, however she was nonetheless in some way radiant. What she requested me to do was to organise and pack up her studio, and retailer her archive on behalf of her household. In my different life, I’ve curated my very own very complete assortment of London style, so Pam and her household may make certain her legacy can be within the most secure of fingers.
I knew it might be the final time I noticed her. As heartbreaking as that was, I may additionally see how glad she was to know that the work she had given the whole lot to can be safe. I’m usually reluctant to fulfill my heroes, however Pam was one thing else. To me, and plenty of others, she’ll at all times be a superhero.